How many times have you heard someone say: “I shot X but I had X three-putts.” Does that person realize how stupid he sounds? Two things: First, why qualify a score when it’s the result of a game that has basically required the same skills for a couple of centuries, as if to infer that there was some new vagary that made your score unusual. Second, it’s like saying your date went well except that you farted seven times during dinner.
    Last year I shot 78 in a tournament round that included seven three-putts. It took some restraint not to offer the typical lament afterward, as if anyone cared. There is just one indication of a good golfer or a good round: your score. Period.
    Would you expect a prima ballerina to tell you she performed well except for the seven times she tripped over her danseur?
    So knock if off. Show some class and stop casually announcing a glaring deficiency as if by pointing it out somehow makes you appear to be a better golfer. It doesn’t. If you can’t putt, you’ll never be a good golfer.

   Why, oh why, do golf courses insist on touting their Audubon credentials when about one in 10,000 golfers would ever choose to play their course based on that distinction? Would you rather play a crappy Audubon-endorsed course or a work of art that doesn’t boast enough designated wetlands and waterways?
    The Audubon pageant is, I suspect, a combination of the outdated stereotype that golf courses are rapacious and reckless with the environment and the modern feel-good effect of saving the planet, whatever that means.
    Most golfers experience the beauty of nature more than the typical urban enviro-crusader does. Golfers routinely witness and appreciate up close grazing deer, roving fox, sunning alligators, gliding herons, skulking coyotes, soaring hawks and eagles, even elk, the occasional bear and any other animal that intuitively knows a golf course is a sanctuary unto itself.
    Any modern course must be built as a friend to the environment, so the Audubon honor has become a bit redundant, but this is a harmless peeve against those who think a certificate on the wall is a finger in the dike of Nature Almighty.

   And speaking of questionable marketing strategies, why do some courses insist on touting how damned difficult they are?
    It’s true, there is a perverse and very small segment of golfers that want to get the crap kicked out of them, from the plus-2 to the 22-handicaper. But have you ever been behind the chopper playing three sets of tees behind his ability? The CIA should send its suspected terrorists to play any of today’s modern monstrosities. The only justice in that would be if the ACLU had to play them first.
    Newsflash to marketers: getting someone to play your course because it is tough is a proven method to ensure he never comes back. A better strategy is to tell the superintendent to mow a little more grass and put up some hazard stakes since it’s too late to tell the architect that your course is not about his ego, but about your bottom line.

   Have you noticed golf announcers insisting that a professional rarely hits a bad putt, only misreads it? Really, are they that good? My guess is that whether they’re playing to make the cut, are in contention, or thinking about the sultry blonde who’s been following inside the ropes, pros make bad putting strokes, too. Just like you and me.

   Speaking of putting, can we agree that we’re all more likely to three-putt on fast greens than slow greens? Then why do so many golfers insist on declaring that they putt better on fast greens?
    Next time someone says that, ask yourself if that person is a good putter. I guarantee you the answer is no. The good putter knows better than to say something so ridiculous.

   As we look forward to a mistress-free Masters, are we officially done with Martha Burke and the Why Aren’t Enough Women Invited to Join Augusta National debate? Does anyone care any more? Is life so good in this country that we can get exercised over why super-rich elite women aren’t invited to play with super-rich elite men? We eagerly await the day when a women-only club tells men they are not welcome. Not now, not ever. Now that will be progress.

   If you can sue McDonald’s for having the temerity to serve coffee hot, why can’t you sue a golf course for charging rack rate to play a course just aerated with quarter-sized holes? Isn’t that like selling a hotel room without a bed – just some blankets and pillows on the floor? Isn’t it fraud? Any course that puts its aeration schedule online is our new BFF, like the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail in Alabama. Any course looking to earn loyalty with integrity (and has the guts to lose a few short-term dollars in the process) should copy the Trail’s honest and forthright practice.
    I know an idiot who went to Harvard Law, came out an idiot and now has an A-List Rolodex. I know a genius who went to George Mason Law, came out an even smarter genius and is struggling with his firm, unable to attract a clientele that won’t choose beyond a diploma on the wall. Just like I know several unheralded municipal and daily-fee courses that are a hell of a lot better than several highly rated private and prestige clubs. Politics isn’t the only arena in which perception is everything.
    Suppose the names on the gates of Pine Valley and neighboring Pine Hill were switched. Now suppose 100 Golf Digest raters go to play both. You know darn well that Pine Hill will get about half the votes as the better course. Pine Hill is very good, but not that good.
    Speaking of “raters,” I know a few and you’ll just have to take my word for it that objectivity is in short supply when double bogeys, buried bunker lies, three-putts and unlucky bounces are not.

   Jack Nicklaus (or Ben Hogan or who cares) once said that he usually hit only a couple of pure shots per round. So why do we have to listen to the 11-handicapper constantly whine about thinned 7-irons to 15 feet? Do it once and we’ll chuckle with you after you realize that you’re now putting for birdie. Keep doing it and we’ll just mutter, “What an ass.”

   Though not quite in the aforementioned category, what’s with those who have to analyze, explain or emote on their every shot? What part of shut up don’t they understand?
    We have a rule in our group that gets invoked every so often when the self-absorbed comments become intolerable. It’s called the Watson Rule, so named because Tom Watson can stiff a 3-iron or skull a wedge with equanimity. Say anything about your shot – anything – and it’ll cost you. It’s not easy, but if you practice the Watson Rule you’ll notice you’re becoming a gentleman and a conversationalist, regardless of your ability.
   

Here are a few clues on how your course is trending when you learn of “exciting” new management:
• Your affable and attentive PGA member is gone and the new pro can’t break 90 and is barely old enough to shave, when he feels like it.
• The fairways are just a bit longer (saves on equipment and labor to mow them one day less each week).
• The green speeds are slower (see above).
• The rough is a bit thinner (less fertilizer means less expense, and who’s going to notice, anyway?).
• The dining menu has fewer selections (easier to manage perishable inventory).
• The ubiquitous club-cleaners are gone (maybe that’s not so bad).
• A 10 a.m. tee time now routinely means 10:30 (the starters, er, “player assistants,” are paid in free golf and have no authority to police tee-time laggards).
• Six-fifty, please, for those practice balls.

It’s like boiling the frog one degree at a time. You’ll never know your course is dying until it’s dead.
    A course in Northern Virginia, once the king of daily-fee venues, is now a high-end cow pasture. The new management cut back on water use. According to the departing head pro, the general manager said, “God will water our course.”
    If you notice any of those trends at your club, tell the owner and let him know where your business is headed. These days, most owners are listening.

   Had enough of the rank hypocrisy concerning whether the president should play golf or not?
    When Republican Presidents Bush 41 and 43 were in office, their rounds were uniformly reported against the backdrop of war and the unseemly spectacle of enjoying an elitist game while the country simmered in crisis. When President Clinton played, the coverage was merely, “Aw shucks, the president loves to pay golf and, boy, he sure takes a lot of mulligans.”
    Now, after playing countless rounds through his first year in office – 29, to be exact – how many critical stories have there been about Obama playing while everyday Americans are being laid off, the economy continues to smolder and Afghanistan and terrorism are not going particularly well?
    Scant few. In fact, the Washington Post, in a news story last summer, theorized that Obama playing golf “reflects a cool self confidence.” It was laudable, no less, that Obama could compartmentalize while the media reported grim news about the wars and the economy. And how many times did Dubya play in his first year? Seven, to be exact.
    Worse, if you’re being fair, President Obama managed to play golf most days of his Christmas vacation, even after a terrorist tried to blow a U.S. passenger jet out of the sky. He did, however, interrupt a round when his buddy’s kid got a boo-boo playing in the ocean. Worry not, the president finished the round after learning everyone was OK. Our view? Golf on, Mr. President, but please don’t make a hole-in-one – Keith Olberman & Co. will try to convince us that you know how to golf better than us, too.

   Even with the new and improved Tiger campaign underway, the whole Tiger saga is tiresome, so I’ll be brief. It really is none of our business that Tiger preferred a pancake waitress to his wife, but I am curious about one thing. When Tiger strode by adulating kids by the thousands, never giving so much a glance, much less an autograph, was it because of that famed steely resolve that sportswriters slobbered on about, or was it because he is one fraudulent, cold bastard?